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academic music training, while the Mighty Hand-
ful was composed mostly of amateurs brought
together by their love of music. Of the five, Rim-
sky-Korsakov was the only one who by virtue of
persistence acquired mastery of his art. Rimsky-
Korsakov's compositions in particular and tire-
less revisions of his associates' music (much of
which they left incomplete) created a Russian
national tradition that made a valuable contri-
bution to musical history. The Mighty Handful's
interest in a national style was part of a broader
social exploration of neglected folk and patriotic
themes that swept through 19th-century Rus-
sian intellectual circles in response to the West-
ernization of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
interests would nevertheless be safeguarded and
harmonized with those of the collective. Like
Aleksandr
HERZEN
, he believed that the home-
grown institutions of the peasant commune and
the workers' artel could provide the seeds for this
collectively harmonious society. Mikhailovsky's
ideas are emblematic of a populist worldview
that accepted important components of Marx-
ism, such as its theory of historical stages, but
tried passionately to write a different scenario
that would end with the victory of a collectivist,
peasant-based socialism. Prominent Marxists of
the 1890s, such as Petr Struve, and especially
Vladimir
LENIN
, for whom morality was class-
specific and not absolute, harshly criticized what
they saw as Mikhailovsky's “ethical” socialism as
well as his insistence on a special path for Russia
that could bypass capitalism. As the 19th century
came to an end with a rapidly industrializing
Russia and a thriving Social Democratic (Marx-
ist) movement, Mikhailovsky and
POPULISM
seemed to have lost the debate, but with the for-
mation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and
the rise of Viktor Chernov as an important theo-
rist, populism underwent one last revival.
Mikhailovsky, Nikolai
Konstantinovich
(1842-1904)
revolutionary theorist
Mikhailovsky was the leading populist philoso-
pher and sociologist in the intellectual debates
that divided the revolutionary movement over
the role of capitalism in the development of Rus-
sian society. Although Mikhailovsky flirted with
radical agitation while a student in St. Petersburg
in the early 1860s, he eventually decided to con-
centrate on serious journalism and writing. Dur-
ing his long career as a public intellectual, he
was associated with two important journals:
Otechestvennye zapiski
(
Notes from the Fatherland
)
from 1869 to 1884, and
Russkoe bogatstvo
(
Russian
Wealth
) from 1892 until his death. Like many in
the Russian intelligentsia, he was briefly seduced
by the attraction of terrorism in the last years of
ALEXANDER II
's reign. In 1881 he interceded in
vain with the new czar,
ALEXANDER III
, to spare
the arrested leaders of the
PEOPLE
'
S WILL
Party
from their death sentences (they had assassi-
nated Alexander II). Mikhailovsky is known in
Russian social thought for his theory of progress,
developed primarily in 1869-70, according to
which humankind could escape the fragmenta-
tion of human nature induced by capitalism and
instead create a better society based on coopera-
tion and solidarity, in which the individual's
Mikhalkov, Nikita Sergeevich
(1945- )
film director and actor
An internationally recognized film director and
actor who has become a public figure in the cul-
tural world of post-Soviet Russia, Mikhalkov
was born in Moscow into a prominent Russian
artistic family of painters and writers. His father,
a children's literature author, also wrote the
lyrics to the old Soviet national anthem. His
mother was a poet, while his brother, working
under the name Andrei Konchalovsky, has
gained an international reputation as a film
director. Well connected from birth in Russian
cultural circles, Mikhalkov studied in the acting
schools of the distinguished Stanislavsky and
Vakhgantov Theaters. Among his early acting
credits was a role in his brother's film
A Nest of
Gentry
(1969), based on the novel by Ivan
TUR
-
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